Saturday, March 05, 2005

If she had any credibility, this would kill it

YOU ARE VISITING THE OLD MALKIN(S)WATCH. THAT'S FANTASTIC. PLEASE VISIT THE NEW MALKIN(S)WATCH WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE.

I've been away from the news, computers, and even telephones for the last 24 hours or so. Obviously, with my luck, I should have predicted something like this would happen.

In case you've been living under a rock like I have, it turns out they've made an arrest in the heinous murder of the Armanious family. In case you've been living under an even bigger rock, the Armanious family are a group of Egyptian Coptic Christians who were savagely murdered in New Jersey in January. Malkin first wrote about it January 16:

Will the patriotic leaders of CAIR--always quick to jump on the hate-crimes bandwagon when it fits their agenda--join the Egyptian Christian community in condemning the vicious Armanious slayings?

* Why would CAIR specifically need to condemn the slayings? Why, because it was those vicious muslims, of course:

The Newark Star Ledger has more on the Egyptian Copt community's outrage:

"This was a terrorist attack," said Amgad Zakhari, 32, a real estate investor who has known the Armanious family since their arrival in the United States. "It was to make an example of Egyptian Christians, to silence them. It has to be a religious motivation."

From the Associated Press, here's the assessment of Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio:

"I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: The motive for these murders was robbery. This was a crime based on greed, the desperate need of money," DeFazio said.

What, are you kidding? This is the crime about which Malkin quoted JihadWatch saying:

The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity - or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur'an 3:28: "Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful - he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah - except in self-defense."

Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the "converted" men and willingly let them in to their home. That's why there was no sign of forced entry. Then the "converted" Muslims did their grisly work.

Ah, JihadWatch. The cream of the blogosphere crop. Here's some comments from that particular site after the announcement:

I'm waiting for more information on these murders. I still think there is an Islamic jihad angle in there...And there's nothing final about this for me. I want more information on the accused, more information in general. At the risk of being racist, I will admit that Hispanic criminals like to use knives a lot more than others. They like to get personal with their victim or adversary. And Sanchez is accused of butchering three of the victims.

As sad is it may sound, I truly hope that these murders can be tied to Islamic intolerance. Maybe it's because I hate what they stand for so much I have become closed minded and paranoiac in my distrust of them.

At least then the Armanious family would not have died for nothing.

One lesson - never surrender. No matter how much pain they cause you, they will cause you more hurt as soon as you give them unopposed control. Die fighting, fight dieing.

(By the way, how is that last one a different sentiment than people like JihadWatch and LGF accuse all Muslims of having in the first place?)

So, I'd like to give a big Fuck You to Michelle Malkin (who posted a multi-part series entitled "HATE CRIME IN JERSEY CITY HEIGHTS"), Powerline, Adam Yoshida (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), Charles Bird, Junkyardblog, Silent Running, and more fringily (and scarily), American Jihad. I intentionally ignored the literally dozens of other minor fascist twits who ran with the hate ball, because I want to make a clear point: The prominent right-wing bloggers, the so-called A- and B-list, including Time's "Blog of the Year", spread hateful lies constantly. They should be called on it.

Remember when Malkin was complaining that she couldn't get her site listed on Google News? And remember when she couldn't stop attacking Dan Rather for Memogate? (Remember?! It was only two days ago!)

Well, Michelle, considering the amount of refuse you dumped on Dan's head, do you really think this is going to cut it:

I was wrong.

Oh, well, all is forgiven. After all, all you did was bloviate for months about this, condemning everyone from the mainstream media to "the left".

Maybe the next time you make fun of the mainstream media's fact-checking, you should look back at this little incident. At least their mistakes don't nearly cause a religious war. Usually.

I am not slamming people for a simple mistake. Bird & Co. jumped on this story because they're motivated by an ideology that holds that Muslims are dangerous. To apologize for making a mistake in this case misses the point entirely, thereby making it a sham. "Oops, I got it wrong this time" fails to recognize that the real failure is due to holding the "clash of civilizations" belief. It also fails to take responsibility for being part of what Dave Neiwert calls the "transmission belt" of eliminationist rhetoric. The people I cited do not need to apologize just for making an error - they need to apologize for holding bigoted beliefs and for helping to spread hatred in an already hatred-ridden culture, and to undertake seriously to change.

Update II: Regarding Malkin's attacks on Dan Rather: Malkin, like so many other right-wing writers, spends all day coming up with examples of how the mainstream media is biased because they write a headline in a certain way or use the word "freakishly."

Compare that to Malkin's bias, which can be broken down into two parts:

1)Does this story have an illegal immigration angle?2)Does this story have a Muslim angle?

Coincidentally, her first book was about #1, and her second book was at least tangentially about #2. You can bet that if her third book were a cookbook, she'd start reporting stories that might have an effect on the price of foodstuffs.

Dan Rather made one mistake in an otherwise true story. Malkin's worldview led her to spend two months reporting theories, conjectures, and outright falsehoods - then calling for specific action based on those straw men.

If you want to really see shoddy reporting based on a predetermined agenda, keep letting people like Malkin into the MSM.

* Not a correction, just a clarification - she wrote questioningly about CAIR's possible statement ahead of time. CAIR then deplored the killings. Malkin then, quite sarcastically, credited them with doing so. Sorry if that wasn't clear.